BASN Classic BlackBox: Broke

Last Updated:June 25, 2007

” WHERE DID I GO WRONG “

Today’s is a Cautionary Tale

the Gazzilionth in human history

of how fleeting Success can be

especially when you are

Master of your own Demise

Things could not be much worse for Marion Jones unless she loses her health in the bargain.

No doubt she deserves some Sympathy for her present Woes but it is real hard not to believe she has not played a major part in her Fate.

Her Fate is if reports are to believed that she now has all of $ 2000 to her name when just a very few years ago she could have claimed to be a Millionaire as a result of her athletic prowess.

Where she lacks Sympathy is that Jones sure seemed to be arrogantly self-confident and contemptuous of any sense of balance. From taking up with fellow discredited Olympic athlete Tim Montgomery and having a child with him with no concern about anything as conventional as marriage or insuring her kid would grow up in a “norm” household.

( she is now married to someone else )

As for her Track career whether or not Marion took performance enhancing drugs she sure surround herself with lots of circumstantial evidence beginning with the above mentioned Tim Montgomery a proven drug user and “friends” like Alex Conte convicted Steroid Kingpin also former friend of Barry B.

Then there was the lifestyle. Fine in our Hyper Materialistic Culture if you really are in a position to be assured the High Life is yours for good. Forever. Buying a multi-million dollar mansion in the same neighborhood as the likes of of Michael Jordan but without anywhere near the financial resources could be considered excessive as it has proven in Jones case.

We don’t have details of all her spending habits. But there is no reason to think she was a careful spender whose one excess was to buy a multi-million dollar mansion for herself. Now gone along with her mother’s more modest home to pay some of Marion’s debts.

More than likely Marion Jones embraced the Good Life in all its many expensive forms. Another reason for those Debts.

Where has it all left her ……

Not just BROKE and deeply in Debt on display as a Celebrity having to endure those pains and embarrassments as thought she is an actor on a very public stage. Except she can’t conclude her performance after each “show” and pick up a big page check for her very realistic performance.

NO Marion Jones goes to bed every night now with a bushel of Troubles and then she wakes up – if she sleeps much at all – with the very same Troubles without a solution she didn’t the night before.

And it gets Worse. By athletic standards Jones is getting OLD. Any fantasies in her debt ridden head about some Super Woman routine at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing is just so much nonsense lunatic ravings of a “mad” woman if she keeps thinking it. You have as much chance of even making the 2008 USA Olympic track team as does Jones let alone winning is bunch of Gold there.

Marion Jones has hit Bottom and there is no way for her to bounce back to where she was. And NO more big dollar endorsements in her future either. At best she will find a way to carry her debts until they eventually fade away. Hopefully get herself a job at some college as an assistant coach and raise her young son modestly. Maybe work her way up to a major college head coaching job and make some relatively Big Bucks while rejuvenating her Legacy.

But whatever does or does not

happen to Marion Jones

her greatest value

will likely be as

one more

Cautionary Tale of

just how fleeting and

largely meaningless

Fame & Success can be

even more so if you

act like a Jerk

Whenever you want to reach us with comments or better yet an idea for a topic for the Box …….

blackbox@blackathlete.net

THE GLORY DAYS ARE ALL OVER